


Salt

by ZoeBug



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, Book 4: The Battle of the Labyrinth, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-18
Updated: 2008-07-18
Packaged: 2018-01-03 23:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tears catch on my lips and they taste like the salty spray of the sea. Like Percy."<br/><br/>During "Battle of the Labyrinth" - Chiron has declared Percy dead after missing for weeks.<br/>Annabeth's POV, the night before the funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salt

**Author's Note:**

> I just recently got an A03 account. Originally posted on fanfiction.net in July 2008. (I know it's cliche, but I wrote this while listening to "Fix You" by Coldplay.)

_I’ve got the sky in my eyes_  
_As I lie on my back in the deep blue sea_  
_What is this, oh, what could this strange feeling be?_  
_It feels like:_  
_I don’t know what it feels like_  
_But it feels right_  
_Sometimes a man is like an ice-cream in a desert_  
_And he wonders what is it we seek?_  
_Like water runs through your fingers_  
_Memories rise up from the deep._

_Saltwater_  
_Oh, how I miss your misty kisses_  
_Saltwater_  
_Oh, what expressionless bliss is this?_

 -Saltwater By: The Cat Empire

* * *

 

_I run as hard as I can, my feet pounding against the solid ground of the path that leads up, up, up towards the sunlight. A lot of good being invisible is when my feet echo off the walls and my ragged breathing can probably be heard up and down the corridor._

_It doesn’t seem like anyone is following me. But that doesn’t matter. As long as I get out, I will be fine. But Percy…_

_I shake my head mid-stride. He will be fine. He will survive. He’s_ Percy. _  
_

_Sunlight sears my eyes as I break out into the daylight, forcing me to squint them almost shut. But I keep running, knowing I can’t stop now, not still so close to the forges. The world is a blur of searing white and slight shadows through my squinted eyelids._

_I ignore the ache between my ribs and the burning in my lungs and press on. I am a half blood. This is a walk in the park compared to some of the things I’ve been through._

He will be fine _, I chant to myself in time with my footsteps, pounding against the ground,_ he will be fine, he will be fine.

_He can’t die. He’s Percy. He’s always going to be there annoying the crap out of me. He has to be. He—_

_And the earth seemed to…shatter beneath me._

_“Annabeth!”_ Someone hisses in my ear, melding with the fading echo of a boy screaming my name.

I wake up, screaming, tears running down my cheeks again. I’d probably woken up the whole cabin again.

Malcolm, my brother, is hanging over the top of the bunk, staring at me with concern.

“I’m fine,” I whisper, wiping the tear tracks from my face with my wrist. “Go back to sleep Malcolm.”

“Did you have another dream?”

“No,” I answer shortly and climb shakily out of bed. I begin to pull on my jeans with numb fingers

“Was it about Per—”

“Don’t…” I freeze - stare straight at him - halfway through pulling on my jeans, “…say it.” Malcolm averts his gaze. I guess he can see the rawness in my eyes.

“I’m sorry, I just—” I finish dressing and head toward the door.

“Just go back to sleep, Malcolm.” I snap and the door swings shut behind me with a soft click. I can still feel tears rolling down my face.

Even that half of a name, those three letters…enough to rip a hole in my heart. The summers here in New York are warm but the nights are still chilly and I feel goosebumps rising on my arms as I wipe away more tears.

I wander away from the cabins and end up near the stables. Standing in the doorway, I inhale the smell of freshly washed horses.

They look at me hopefully as I walk to the nearest stall and place my hand on the nearest horse’s nose.

“He’s not coming back,” I tell them. The horse’s black eyes seem to  blink slowly in understanding. “He’s not ever…” I can’t finish.

The pent up frustration and anger and fear and grief and sadness from the past two weeks all suddenly just strikes me like a gale force and I streak out of the stables, away from the camp down towards the beach. My voice pierces the night air like Artemis’ silver arrow in a strangled scream.

 _You’ll wake the camp_ , the shred of reason, of my mother, that I have left speaks in the back of my mind; _do you really want them to find you out here breaking apart over him_? But for the first time in my life, I do not listen to reason.

I keep walking and staggering and crying and sobbing and screaming over the dunes.

Tears catch on my lips and they taste like the salty spray of the sea.

Like Percy.

I trip and fall in the white sand, the sound of the ocean stretching for miles and miles roars in the distance. So close I can almost taste it. I raise my head off the sand, and look up. The waves are so close, a handful of staggering steps away, surging into the shore.

Tears pour down my face and I reach out for the water with trembling fingers. The waves rush up as if he is reaching, reaching, reaching towards me. . .

The waves don't meet my fingers...always just out of reach.

“Take…” I choke, crawling, dragging myself through the sand on my stomach. “Take me too!” My voice is hoarse and breaking, but I don’t care. I scream at the sea and the dark water. “Take me too!”

I am a wreck.

A scream, an enormous screech wells up inside me, like a wave collecting as if draws closer and closer to shore.

It crashes on the beach and my scream tears out of me by force, feeling as if it is ripping me to shreds. It is a creature of rage and grief as it tears out of me - burning, searing blood red into the back of my eyelids.

And then, like a light winking out, it is stolen by the calmness of the water and the sky. Both black tonight.

Black for him.

But I am not calm.

“So much wisdom!” I scream to my mother, to the sky. “I know so much! So…” I sob, mid sentence, “so, so much! Why wasn’t it enough?! _Why wasn’t it enough?!_ ” I demand. My fists grasp at empty air, at my clothing, at my hair, trying to grab onto something tangible, something _real_. Something to clench so hard my knuckles turn white so I know there is something besides the creature inside me producing another scream.

Tears stream down my face. Salt. It tastes like him.

“How could you!” I scream at the sea, so peaceful and calm as if nothing has changed. How does the world keep turning if he’s not in it? “He was your _son!_ ” I shriek to the calm, gentle waves. "And you just let him **_DIE_**!” I collapse and try to dig my fingers into the dirt and my teeth into my lip to muffle a sob.

I hear footsteps…hooves on the sand behind me, running towards me, but they don’t register.

I manage to crawl up to a standing position and I stagger to the water.

The waves surge around my knees and I smell sweet salt and open skies and it smells like Percy when he hugged me and my knees buckle. I fall to all fours into the waves, crying and my eyes are burning from the waves and the salt and my tears and…

“Annabeth!” It’s Chiron. “Annabeth, what are you doing?!”

“No, _no_!” I am sobbing, struggling up to my feet again, trying to wade further and further out.

“Annabeth!” Chiron calls. His voice is frantic and I can hear him sloshing into the water behind me. I feel his arms around my waist from behind and he begins pulling me back towards shore.

“No! Let me go! _Let me go_!” I scream, struggling and kicking and hitting. “I have to…I _have_ to…!”

“Annabeth,” Chiron pleads, his voice soft and _terribly_ sad, “Let him go...”

I go still.

My arms drop to my sides, my legs standing rigid in the surf, my eyes feeling distant and glassy.

“He’s out there…” My voice is feeble and child-like. I sound lost. “I can _feel_ him, Chiron.”

“Yes…” Chiron says gently, his grip finally relaxing around my waist. He lets go of me and trots around to stand in front of me. He knees in the surf, so that his human torso is level to mine. Reaching out, he grabs both my hands. “He’s here.” He pulls my hands down so I have to bend my knees enough to touch the water.

The cool touch of the salty water brings tears welling in my eyes. I can’t tell if its tears or the salty spray that is making my eyes burn anymore. “And here.” He raises both pairs of our clasped hands so that they touch right above my heart. “He died to save you, Annabeth. He died a hero.”

“He _lived_ a hero, too.” I feel my bottom lip quiver. “Chiron,” I whisper, trying to control my lip and my voice, the tears threatening to overflow again, to leak out of me like water from a dam. I was usually so good at building things to last. “He can’t be gone,” I whisper, blinking rapid.

“Oh, Annabeth,” Chiron whispers sadly and hugs me tightly. I stare out over Chiron’s shoulder at the black sky and black ocean, salt flavoring my lips…

I close my eyes, and pretend it’s _him_ …

 

**Author's Note:**

> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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